Not Supposed to Happen
by egochan
Summary: Driving one's deranged father to a mental institution can be stressful for sure, but also very enlightening. Ryuuji and his father consider their relationship not that and promptly refuse to come to terms with the fact they're even related.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh. I never will either, I suppose, if my Dad keeps running his mouth. I swear, one overly insane liberal, and I'm as good as murdered in my bed, man. *hunts down scholarships* Gotta go…gotta go _away_….

**Note:** This fic isn't in any canon I can see, so AU? Yes, because I'm not for the original plot right now…. *hugs Yami no Yuugi and refuses to let him go* You're not going anywhere, buddy. Forget it. Kiss your sad-assed preference for inexistence goodbye. *locks YnYuugi in a room with her YGO favorites: Ryuuji, Seto, and Mai* Dinner's at six, babe, I know you'll see the light eventually. *Mai, Ryuuji, and Seto start griping about how they haven't seen light since Ego started writing YGO fan fiction (two years)* Don't listen to them, they just get a buzz off complaining and annoying the hell outta people—_me_ in particular.

Erm, PG-13 for some lovely swear words in our terrific English language *which I will be happily murdering for the next few decades, so grin an bear it with everyone else* Also, a preempted apology for my failure to acquire a beta-reader for this. Erm, I use spellchecker? *hopeless grin*

Now for my overused squiggly-thingies…oh, and the fic, too.

~#~Not Supposed to Happen~#~

    It would rain forever and Ryuuji's car would drown. Maybe he should have gotten a boat? Would his apartment float? It was a lot of rain and it was cold. You thought California would always be sunny and bright, the Golden Mountain of opportunity. Obviously it wasn't. Things grew chilly in Domino, but you expected so much. He had not been looking forward to what he was faced with just outside Los Angeles. Winters were never any good anywhere, were they? There was odd compulsion to build in ark, just in case. The news was all mudslides though, so maybe what he really wanted was his fast car and an even stretch of empty road leading away (if such a road existed—who had the right to be driving around in the rain at three in the morning? At least Ryuuji had an excuse, he was trying to reach San Francisco before the apocalypse). It was a tempting dream. Unfortunately, not only had the heater given up after its short-lived, thirty-minute effort, there was an accident just before his exit and traffic was being redirected in entirely the wrong direction. It wasn't right. He wondered if he had done anything in his past life as a rat to deserve this.

    "Ryuuji, what's taking so long?" a voice asked lazily from the backseat. Ryuuji rolled his eyes and slapped the hand snaking towards his coffee.

    "That's _my_ drink."

    "Where are we?"

    "It's kinda hard to check the map when I'm driving, Tousan."

    The old man in the back seat shook his head at the impertinence of his son. He was old and tired, so why did Ryuuji have to be so difficult? He was supposed to respect his father. What happened to that?

    "Why am I here? Where's the doctor?"

    Ryuuji gritted his teeth and hunched over the wheel, glaring at the man through his rearview mirror.

    "Your car is junk, Tousan. If we'd taken mine we would have been in Seattle by now."

    "I thought you were heading for San Francisco?"

    Ryuuji growled in frustration. "I'm merely implying how much faster it would be," he snapped crossly, tired with the endless babbling from the back. What had he done to deserve this? He could have gotten someone else to take his father up to his new hospital, but no. For some reason he had felt inclined to do so himself. Some demented idea had infiltrated his senses and had convinced him there was a kind of value in family. It had hit him, of course, years after he'd seen his father and feeling faintly guilty. That was the only way he would have convened the strange notion of taking his father to his new hospital personally.

    It was probably the stupidest thing he'd ever done willingly.

    "Why am I going to another hospital? I'm not crazy, Ryuuji. You ought to tell the doctors that instead of listening to them and taking me back. I'm as sane as I've always been."

    You've always been crazy, Tousan, Ryuuji thought vindictively.

    "Those doctors don't know what they're doing, Ryuuji. They're the ones who are crazy, not me."

    Ryuuji sighed and sped past a car with two teenage girls talking to each other casually. One promptly flipped him off at the insult, but he ignored it. This caused the driver, at her companion's insistence, to nervously begin tailing him. The girl in the navigator's seat looked absolutely lethal. Ryuuji glanced back at them a few times irately and sped to his new exit. The decades more mature one, the driver, decided it was really more important she make her destination than infuriate the jerk that cut her off. Her friend's face was livid as what seemed to be the motioned request to ram Ryuuji's car was declined. {A}

    "Ryuuji, you should turn around and go right to the airport. Take me back to Domino City."

    "Iya."

    "I'm not a lunatic. Don't be such an ungrateful baka. Stop ignoring. Listen to me!"

    Ryuuji squinted through the rain-drenched windshield at the road ahead. The car seemed to be heating as the old man complained in the back seat. His incessant rambling was annoying the young man behind the wheel. Ryuuji was trying his best not to get angry at the fallacy of being rational. It wasn't easy as he glared at the road, suddenly more than willing to pull over and push his father out in to the rain. For a few minutes, it was tempting. Ryuuji was convinced people weren't made to resist such impulses forever. You couldn't possibly drown _everything_ out without going apeshit on someone eventually. Ignoring wasn't healthy. The unhealthiest thing to do, actually. It pressured you to disregard information, drove your hippocampus at one twenty-five to blur what you wanted forgotten into a shapeless bauble of the past. Ryuuji certainly didn't want that, but he couldn't just wait until his father left for a rest stop and speed off smirking in the opposite direction.

    "Tousan, where's the map?" Ryuuji sighed as he discovered he had somehow found his way onto a route threatening to take them in to Arizona, the bowels of the Rockies, and straight on to only-God-fucking-knows-where-Texas. "I'm gonna get myself lost."

    "Of course you are!" his father said, probing around the floor of the car for the map he couldn't see. "You probably can't read it anyway, but if you confused Los Angeles with Merced, I'm not complaining." He laughed a hoarse, dry, I'm a thousand years old and all the moisture has evaporated from my body, laugh, and pulled up the coffee table sized book. Ryuuji would have been disturbed if he were on the outside looking in. Why would such a slow looking old man have the audacity to start criticizing someone younger driving, someone who looked about ready to slam on the gas and go roaring into the side of the road to end his misery and take a few trees out with him?

    That was an easy question. He knew Ryuuji wouldn't have the nerve to _do_ anything.

    For what his father cared, Ryuuji was a coward, first rate. Not only that, he was a conceited coward who believed he could do everything but didn't do anything. He was a liar too. His assertiveness around weaker intellectuals, his continual talking and groaning over menial details, running out of things to say and spinning elaborate yarns—why, all of that was his pathetic behavior. Fools lied. They couldn't take the reality, so they made a new one. Ryuuji was all of that and more, a parrot stating the obvious because that was all he let himself see. And now, though he had a strong desire to stop the car and impale his father on the nearest fence post, it would never go beyond that. The old man smirked grimly. Ryuuji probably considered himself pretty well tempered and under control. He wouldn't blow up at his father. He'd never allow himself to do such a thing. There was a certain authority he saw, maturity beyond his years, which kept him from taking after more impulsive tendencies. The old man watched him with a wry grin. He was sure he could see the whole philosophy right in front of him, laid out in its childish simplicity like a dinner:

    Because he didn't react too blatantly in his frustration to humor the old man's jibes, Ryuuji was able to convince himself he was that much better than the man.

    His father thought it was hilarious.

    "What are you sneering at back there, Tousan? You have a super plan on taking out palm trees? I'd say that's a bit _craaazy_, you know." Ryuuji accentuated the crazy, portending to the man's diagnosed schizophrenia. His father's eyes hardened a little but relaxed quickly. The grin didn't change.

    "I'd watch the road instead if I were you. The rain's coming down hard," he said smartly. Ryuuji had picked up the habit of stating more sensible modes of action from his father it. It was really all the old man could think of to say. Keep your eyes on the road and for the love of God, you damn best not crash. I've got a few more decades to live, and I don't want my last view of the world to be this ugly car. Just be a good boy now and watch the road.

    For the next few minutes, the car was silent. Ryuuji could no longer see the faces of the drivers next to them as rain cascaded down the windows. He had five seconds to watch the road as the window was wiped and instantly covered over again. Cats and dogs, he thought at the roar of water against the hood, thank God there aren't cats and dogs falling or we'd all be dead…dead or overrun. The kennels would go psycho. 

    He veered left suddenly in mid-thought to avoid what looked like five, chrome edged elephants in the middle of the street, each going slow enough to appear immobile. Didn't the drivers know it was raining? They were going to get into an accident and it'd be Ryuuji's fault for crashing into them. Officer, this rabid young man hit our minivan and called us elephants…. And what's that accent? Oh my God, a terrorist! He's probably one of those schizoid North Koreans! Don't look at him kids.

    Of course, at this moment, Ryuuji would step back calmly and motion to the screaming old man in the back seat. Well, he's not Korean, but he's crazy. Anybody want him?

    It was actually a very interesting scenario.

    "Well, my _sane_ son, what are you glaring at?"

    "The road." Ryuuji replied curtly, trying to make sense of the jumbled blurs in the windshield. Quick, is that a cow or a pickup? Hell, I don't want to hit either! he thought frantically. He turned sharply back to the right and gave a small sigh of relief. Whatever that was, it was close.

    "Why are you glaring at the road when the rain's bothering you?"

    "Why are you crazy?" Ryuuji retaliated angrily, for a moment overstepping his point of no reprisal.

    "I'm not."

    Ryuuji sighed again, louder and angrier this time. He'd had just about enough of _that_. In a fit of sudden rage, he pulled over and slammed on the breaks, the old man grinning the entire time. It was a shame he had to teach such a well-trained son how to listen again, but it was almost fun (in a more than sadistic way). The first step: Prove to the kid he had no control over his emotions; prove that someone needed to test him and keep him in line. If things went like before, Ryuuji would grow obsessed with proving he could resist his desire for retribution. Someone like Ryuuji, with his blankly staring china doll pride founded safely behind a storefront window, was easy to manipulate. The young man wasn't probing, didn't hunt down what wasn't obvious, and his love of attention—an optimistic confidence springing from his eccentric good looks—didn't make up what his father considered a deep, or in anyway dangerous personality. The kid was an idiot, and immature about it too. Who the hell was obsessed with dice except for a fool controlled by his _annoying_ idiosyncrasies? Ryuuji knew nothing, and his father was convinced.

    Of course, the man had wondered if he were wrong. Maybe Ryuuji was _really_ a liar? An actor? Maybe he was being fooled?

    No, someone so slow as Ryuuji couldn't be faked. You couldn't pretend that, damn it. The act came natural.

    "Will you shut up and let me drive?" The now furious teen asked. 

    "You call this driving? I call it parked on the side of the road arguing."

    Ryuuji considered this for a moment and suddenly smirked, looking away and propping his head in his hand. He looked out the window with an odd grin, laughing softly to himself.  His father looked at him without a word, trying his best not to be surprised. It'd only been a few years and Ryuuji had gone off and evolved on him into someone crazy. That wasn't supposed to happen. He was supposed to pull over and glare and wish he wasn't in the current situation. Irritated comments and frustrated sighs passed all right, but he wasn't supposed to insult his father in his face so readily and then start _laughing_. Maybe it had to do with the fact Ryuuji had been living on his own for a while, wasn't scared of anything his father could do. Like his father, he probably thought the other man in the car could do nothing but run his mouth and make an ass of himself. Well, someone was sure full of themselves then, to think that way. You never knew what happened to people when they were left to their own defenses. It seemed Ryuuji had gone of and made himself insane. His father was certain he himself was looking more and more rational by the second. 

    "That's a _terrible_ comeback." Ryuuji sneered, still amused, "_Pathetic_, even." He continued watching the cars speed by out the window with his insane smirk. This convinced the old man in the back seat that he was the only sensible one in the damn car. Hell, he was the only person who could think themselves in the whole damn state, the country, the entire world. It was true; the planet was the infirmary of the universe, where they dropped off all of the freaks and let them destroy each other on their own time. First it was the retarded dinosaurs. Now it was the conflicted race called mankind, controlled by what's right, what's wrong, and how much you can get away with before somebody squeals. Also thrown in were a few more retarded animals and some ugly houseplants no one else wanted.

    And he was stuck in it all. His son had even succumbed to the insanity. No one else could think, and plan, and carry out. Only a few. Only a few in a generation.

    If Ryuuji could have seen his father realization, he would have passed out laughing. It seemed someone had been reading a bit too far in to Dostoevsky. Was that what they gave you to read in the madhouse? It was no wonder people didn't leave. They were all devout believers in Raskolnikov's expounded theory. It would have been a hilarious image in his head, a bunch of patients sitting in their cells ardently reading the exact shit to make a person crazy if he thought about it too much. And since there wasn't much else to think of anyways, each inmate would be obsessed with what he just read; hardly realizing it had become a new part of his psyche until too late. Not until after it wore off and left them wondering why they'd been allowing such borderline imbecilic ideas in the quiet aloneness of their cages, keeping their irrational notions from the world in the five mile radius.

    "Who the hell takes their Mercedes in this weather?" Ryuuji asked around his quiet laughs as he continued looking out the window. He had no idea what his father was thinking. Everything was hilarious for a moment because he hadn't realized part of his world had just fallen in until his father's retribution a few minutes before. In the following silence he'd finally faced it, finally was able to concentrate and pull closer to the realization: There was absolutely nothing even remotely threatening about his father. Ryuuji admitted a bit shamefully that he'd been nervous coming over and waiting outside the institution for the old man to be given to him. He'd been scared his father would do something, only he wasn't sure _what_ exactly. His memories of the man were a firm hand and an obsession with the Sennen Puzzle. His most recent had been the once intimidating voice screaming about puzzles and mazes. Over the years he'd tried to pretend the boring life up until high school hadn't really happened, or, at least wasn't that bad. He became frightened in an odd way of the past and also his father. Now Ryuuji realized just how stupid this had been. His father was a weak old man in the back of the car, half crazy and not capable of forming the witty comebacks that had put Ryuuji in his place before. The man had nothing; no control, not imposing standards—hell, he didn't even have _money_. Ryuuji wanted to die laughing at himself. What had he been scared off, a loon with a temper that, sure, could scare a seven-year-old temporarily out of his faculties, but naught else? Ryuuji almost felt sorry for the old man. Hell, he was _sorry_ he felt sorry for the old man. There wasn't a whole lot left to his father, was there? What was the wrinkled bag of bones in the backseat without his intimidating ability to invoke fear in a kid who couldn't go anywhere else? Now Ryuuji could go somewhere else, and you could bet Hell it was the other direction. Not out of fear, of course, but annoyance and frustration.

    _Definitely_ not out of fear.

    Ryuuji wasn't scared of anything. Wasn't controlled by anything. Wasn't dependant on anyone but himself. Once was enough and he was beyond that.

    "Are you going to keep here all day? You might want to turn the car off, you're wasting fuel and doing ozone stuff—whatever that does."

    Ryuuji smirked at this, "What do _you_ know about ozone? You don't even use the word in the right context."

    The old man frowned and glared. He kept thinking, This wasn't supposed to happen.

    With a content sigh very much unlike it predecessors, Ryuuji put the car back into gear. It gave him a half-hearted bang-clank before lurching forward and back onto the highway.

    "What's so funny anyway?" The old man asked from the back. His voice tried to sound as if really could've cared less, but failed. Why was his son such an idiot? What had he done wrong? Those were the question on the tip of the old man's tongue as he waited for some half-assed excuse about caffeine or straying thoughts. Ryuuji was supposed to pay attention to the _road_.

    "Nothing, really." Ryuuji said as he maneuvered easily through two more elephant cars. He was proud of the steering accomplishment, for he hadn't bothered to take the time glancing timidly across the space between with flawed mental estimation and franticly wondering over if he'd fit.

    His father scowled, "You're gonna get us killed, Ryuuji!" The man was sitting up now, looking about ready to lurch forward and somehow take the wheel in his possession. How he'd manage to move his old bones so quickly, Ryuuji had no clue, but that seemed to be the plan. Primitive it was, yes, but it may have been affective once before. A long, long time before.

    Ryuuji said, "Sit back, Tousan. I can't see behind us. You don't want my terrible driving and your head blocking the window to kill us both, do you?" His father glared angrily and collapsed back in to the seat, all the time muttering and looking up at the young man driving. He turned and stared gloomily out the window. From an entrance ramp a dark shape was looming, large an ominous. A hoarse yell of alarm died in the man's throat as he watched the alien object cut through the rain and straight for the car. It was another car and it didn't see them. Ryuuji didn't see it either. Not until his father's silence became too evident and he looked out the window.

    "Shimatta!" Ryuuji swore, trying to figure out a way to escape the larger car. The rain was a terrible handicap. They wouldn't make it past. Shit. He should have been looking. There was going to be a collision and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it but timidly wonder if any driving classes had at least _attempted_ to prepare him for a similar situation.

    Oh God, Ryuuji thought as his car kept on its deadly path. They were dead. They were so dead he could feel the crash in his bones. He could sense to metal twisting into a grotesque cage, imprisoning already glass-ridden bodies. He could hear the ambulances, the desperate calls for assistance. There'd be someone speaking to them in that moronic sound called the West Coast accent, and he'd be asking if they were all right. Of course, the words would fall on deaf ears. Father and son would be dead. Dead doornails. Silenced. Every single cliché would eagerly fit the bill, and no one alive would ever know what had transpired before the fatal accident. No one would see the moment of triumph, the scheming, and a smoldering defiance and disbelief. The argument would be dead as well. Gone.

    Ryuuji could hear again his father telling him they were going to get into a damn accident in the terrible weather. Well, he was right. Ryuuji wasn't very sure he wanted to be, but he was.

~#~

{A} I call that an author insertion. The driver's _not_ me. *smirky, smirk, smirk, smirku*

*kneels over and dies* Gah, I was bored to a state of shock and felt like writing a fic (apparently not a good thing). Look at those paragraphs, man. I'm soo sorry. *hugs Ryuuji* Maybe I could expound on this and let them live? …Or at least arrange the funeral?

~Ling no Yong~


End file.
